


long way down

by dolphins



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, angst and fluff combo, comforting! yuuri, hurt! viktor, with a side of snowy cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 12:31:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8285971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolphins/pseuds/dolphins
Summary: Four o' clock in the morning probably isn't the best time for a phone call. But when it's Viktor on the other end, Yuuri couldn't care less.





	

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i am literally DYING a slow death waiting for the next episode.
> 
> how did i get sucked in this much SO FAST?
> 
> you awesome people better keep up with your awesome fic-writing.

It's 4am when he gets the call. Yuuri flaps around with the monstrous duvet encasing his phone. Mild panic setting into his chest as he locates it, the blinding light making him squint a pair of exhausted eyes.

No calls at 4am are good news. Either that or sober.

"Hello?" he splutters, his voice sounding all croaky from sleep. Waiting, there's no sound and he is about to pass it off as a prank call when he hears a shuddering breath down the line.

"Is someone there?" he asks, sitting upright as his brain de-clouds. "Hello?" he asks again, starting to feel a bit ticked off.

"Yuuri," a quiet voice utters.

It's lost and broken, but unmistakably Viktor. A gush of fear floods through his lungs like a hurricane, mixing his organs up in an anxiety-filled blender.

"Viktor? What's going on?" he says instantly. 

The Russian man hadn't been knocking around all evening, Yuuri had just assumed he was sleeping. It's only just hitting him that Viktor wasn't home at all.

"Are you okay?" he asks, standing up to pace a bit around his room in the dark. "Has something happened?"

Only shuddering breaths could be heard. Not exactly crying but what sounds like the ghostly remains of it, leeching on and making his breath catch with every inhale.

Images shoot through his mind. Viktor lying in a bloody pool, clutching at a seeping wound in his chest. 

A whimper almost escapes and he has to shove his sleeve in his mouth. No, he shouts in his head. If Viktor was in such trouble it wouldn't be Yuuri he would be calling, but an ambulance, that's assuming he could even multitask a telephone call while he bleeds to death.

"Can you meet me?" he asks, steadying up his tone to sound like his usual firm, elegant self. It sounds weak and papery, Yuuri crinkles his face up in confusion but he's already pulling on his socks.

"It's 4am you know," he says but it's not in a complaining way. Just conversation to keep Viktor there.

Yuuri knows he could be persuaded to walk over hot coals for the man; probably agree to never eat pork cutlet bowls again. Okay, perhaps that's pushing it a bit too far.

"I'm sorry it's so late," he replies, forcibly lifting his tone. "You're not drunk, are you?" Yuuri tries to tease him, trembling a bit with nerves as he pulls sweatpants on. "I'm not carrying you home if you are,"

"No," Viktor says but he doesn't take the joke and carry it on like he would have done. Maybe make some sort of flirty remark about how he hopes Yuuri carries him home anyways. Wink, wink. Oh god, he is spending too much time with Viktor.

"I'm leaving now," he says as he tugs on a coat. "Where are you at? Do you need anything?"

There's silence for a second while Viktor swallows and Yuuri starts sweating nervously.

"I just need you,"

Yuuri's heart thumps, slam-dunking into his chest and rattling his rib cage around. Lungs deflating from the impact, his entire face welcoming the sudden influx of red blood cells.

"I'll be there,"

It only takes a few minutes to get past the national security of his mum and dad and track Viktor down. He's a grown up, but sloping off at 4am would raise suspicion at any age.

Man, it's freezing. So cold his fingers start to hurt from where they are buried inside his coat. It's not just the exertion making his heart race as he spots Viktor crumpled on a bench, the snow threatening to turn him into a Russian snowman.

"Viktor!" he calls as he stops, panting a few metres away from him. Of course he ran the whole way here. It wasn't particularly far but his muscles ache, tingling with adrenaline.

Viktor looks up, ever so similar to a deer in the headlights with his shocked eyes and swooshing hair. It's soaked and droplets skit like bullets. God, he is complete ice.

"You need to get inside," Yuuri instantly says, forgetting the fact that Viktor is so high up he can barely reach him and sinking down into the snowy bench to wrap an arm around him.

"You're too cold, you are going to get ill,"

Viktor shakes his head rapidly, silver hair slinking about in wet strands. He looks like a drowned puppy and pushes his head into Yuuri's shoulder.

"What's happened?" he demands, firm but gentle. A red scratch traces the side of his pale face and it beads little blobs of blood.

"My dog," he croaks and Yuuri's eyes dart around for the fluffy mutt. "Have you lost him?" he asks after Viktor goes quiet and bites at his lip to stop it shaking.

"I tried," he says and Yuuri takes his scarf off and wraps it around the other man. He's shaking and despite the obvious underlying emotional distress, the impending hypothermia takes first priority.

"We can look for him. I'll help, I promise," he starts babbling. "He won't have gone far," Viktor isn't looking very comforted and Yuuri panics. His eyes gloss with tears and Yuuri really doesn't know what he will do if Viktor cries.

"People round here are friendly enough. We'll set up posters tomorrow and someone will have to spot him somewhere,"

"I tried to save him," Viktor corrects, a scratched hand coming up to clutch at Yuuri's coat. A black hole sucks all of his emotions up and spits out a whole load of curse words.

"Viktor, I-"

"He's dead," he grits his teeth and tightens his grip. "A car hit him and he just lay there," 

It's one of the worst things Yuuri has ever experienced. The grief of losing his dog. He was his best friend, his sole companion. A kind of pain he never really thought possible until he walked into the room, clicking his tongue when he realised padded footsteps weren't going to greet him.

"I'm so sorry," Yuuri says and keeps his arm around Viktor, not just for the heat this time but as a silent comfort.

"I know you're thinking I'm overreacting," Viktor utters. It isn't like him to consider what others might be thinking of him.

Yuuri can't even mask his shock. "No, of course not. When my dog died I could barely stomach getting up in the morning,"

Viktor looks up at him, chisled features all ghostly pale. But for a moment he looks so vulnerable it stabs a little hole in Yuuri's heart. A complete contrast to the angel he sees on the ice. A human, with trembling hypothermia-breaths and trying to bite away any approaching tears.

"Really?"

"Yeah," Yuuri holds him tighter and breathes in the cold smell of snow and cologne. "I could have rescued him," he admits and he buries his face.

"No you couldn't have," Yuuri hushes him and squeezes his shoulder. "He was an animal after all so he'll do what he wants,"

"I'm going to be so lonely without him," Viktor says almost silently, it sounds like it's to himself and Yuuri would feel like he was nearly intruding if not for the kick to the feeling box.

"I know you are," he rubs away the warm tears bubbling out with the sleeve of his coat. It's wordless gesture he repeats every couple of minutes while Viktor forgets he is the world's top ice-skater and instead he is Viktor Nikiforov, crying away about his dog on the shoulder of his student.

Neither of the two die of hypothermia and when they arrive back home, that fact is quite a surprise. It's a little after 5am and their lips and extremities are practically blue and numb.

"Go and shower," Yuuri advises softly as they sit side by side of Viktor's bed, wet clothes sticking to icy skin. "Will you be here when I get back?" he asks.

"I'll be back as soon as I change my clothes," he promises and Viktor seems appeased by that. It's awfully strange this, in Yuuri's opinion. The actual Viktor Nikiforov is seeking his comfort.

He pinches himself when he walks back to his own room.

A flurry of bizarre feelings scutter through him when he finally has a second, kind of like beans spluttering out of a tin and landing in a heap in his heart.

He doesn't know how to help Viktor, how to ease the pain he must be feeling. Yuuri just knows he can't let this eat Viktor up the way it did to him.

When he is back in his jamas, Viktor is cocooned in a duvet with his eyes fixed and waiting for Yuuri. He almost spills his tray of steaming tea and soup with the shock.

"Are you feeling any better?" he passes Viktor a cup and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed. "Thank you," he accepts the cup and stares strangely at Yuuri's embarrassed perch.

"Why are you sitting way over there?"

Yuuri stutters and instantly flusters. It's almost endearing how quickly he can go from composed to all blushing and nervous. Sweet enough to make Viktor's mouth curl up in a smile.

"Come closer," he tugs at the hem of his jama top and Yuuri yelps, almost sending his tea into an early grave. "I don't think that would be a-appropriate,"

Viktor lets out an honest to god laugh and Yuuri would almost be irked if not for woah, he is agonisingly glad for that laugh.

"I don't want to take advantage of y-your vulnerable state of emotions," Yuuri says a little defensively, face burning like flipping hot lava.

"Oh Yuuri," he laughs harder, letting out a little stream of natural Russian. It sounds fond enough but he wishes he knew the language to understand. "I'm not trying to have my wicked way with you, I only want you to lie a bit more comfortable,"

Yuuri accepts this with a lump of pure nerves in his throat and with stiff, robotic movements pulls himself to sit next to Viktor. A dream come true, nonetheless he's shaking more than he thinks he did out in the snow.

"Thank you," Viktor says, playing with a loose thread on the duvet. "I know it's out of your line of responsibility to come and fetch me when I'm down,"

"Don't be silly," Yuuri shushes him with one of the bowls of soup and they slurp quietly.

There's a strange kind of buzzing energy in the room, it's fizzling between them and it's taking most of Yuuri's willpower to focus on looking and sounding and breathing normal.

Bowls and cups aside, they lie back in the castle of pillows and cushions. Bodies probably exhausted from trying to prevent near-death by extreme temperatures, that and the fact it's the middle of the night.

In a half sleepy daze, Viktor reaches out for his dog, only to clutch at the duvet. It's then when Yuuri realises he needs to leave. He needs to, damn it. But he feels his body limp and boneless with fatigue, a jellyfish plopped down on the sand.

"I won't let you feel that kind of loneliness I did," he promises in a whisper, eyes drooping and he misses the way Viktor's eyebrows twitch. In only a second he moves to fill the empty gap in Viktor's arms; a puzzle piece a little different to its successor but probably a bit more snug.

With a barely conscious sigh, he lets the Russian man clutch him to his chest like he did his dog. Nimble fingers curl in his thick hair and stroke his head softly.

Clouds of sleep and warmth and a barely-there kind of consciousness swirl around them and Yuuri hears a quiet utter as he gets further entangled.

"I really like you a lot, Katsuki Yuuri,"

Perhaps it isn't only his limbs that are getting tangled up with Viktor, he suddenly realises, heart palpitating and spurting blood out at rocket speed.

It might be the case that he really likes Viktor too.

**Author's Note:**

> WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF SO LATE AT NIGHT? pls stop me.
> 
> comments are welcomed like cookies so fire away! and feel free to leave con-crit if there's errors or if you have some thoughts to spawn!!!!! :)


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